BELGRADE— Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic on Monday accused Croatia of threatening peace in the Balkans after the SupremeCourt in Zagreb quashed a verdict against a former MP convicted of war crimesfor killing Serbs.

Vucic’s statement also came after a Croatian court on July 22 quashed acommunist-era verdict convicting a controversial World War II-era cardinal ofcollaborating with the Nazis, infuriating Serbia.

"What is happening seriously affects peace and stability in the region,"Vucic said in a statement, adding that he had written to complain to EuropeanCommission president Jean-Claude Juncker, EU foreign policy chief FedericaMogherini and EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court in Zagreb ordered a retrial for formerlawmaker Branimir Glavas, who was sentenced in 2010 to eight years in jail overhis role in the gruesome killing of Serbian civilians at the start of the 1990swar in Croatia.

Days earlier, a court had quashed a communist era verdict convictingAlojzije Stepinac, 70, who headed Croatia’s Catholic Church during World WarII, over Nazi collaboration.

This weekend, a statue was erected in the Adriatic town of Draga in tributeto Miro Baresic, a Croatian nationalist who was sentenced to life in prison inSweden in 1971 for having participated in the murder of the Yugoslav ambassadorin Stockholm.

Baresic, who was later pardoned, returned to Croatia in the 1990s and waskilled in fighting in 1991. — AFP